KERNVILLE, Calif. (KERO) — 23ABC spoke with several frustrated members of the Kern River Valley community about the Southern California Edison power shutoffs. Residents say they're frustrated and want more communication.
- Residents in Kern River Valley express frustration over multiple PSPS power outages, some of them lasting over 12 hours.
- Business owners fear lasting economic impacts due to extended outages and lack of communication from SCE.
- SCE claims power shutoffs aim to mitigate wildfire risks during dangerous weather conditions.
- Local residents and hospital officials question the necessity of shutoffs, citing similar weather patterns in previous years.
- Many residents report inadequate notifications about power outages, leaving them unprepared.
- Southern California Edison does have a community resource center open to customers affected at the Play Your Game Recreation Center on 20 Panorama Dr. in Wofford Heights.
For your convenience, the skimmable summary above is generated with the assistance of AI and fact checked by our team prior to publication. Read the full story as originally reported below.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
My day started in Kernville, speaking with Roberta Piazza, a former member of the 23ABC team, who now owns the Piazza Pinecone Motel. Who said she’s obviously frustrated by the situation and just wants to see more communication from the utility.
"I think people would go along with a lot if a case were made for what the real need of this is, if they understood why the power here is being shut off when the risk may be somewhere further upstream."
From there, I set off to speak with several members of the KRV Community notably in Mountain Mesa, who have bore the brunt of the PSPS’s. Christie May Elliot works at both the Red Rooster Cafe and El Portal, a Mexican restaurant, who said if this continues, it could have a lasting impact on the Kern River Valley as a whole.
"There's a lot of people that can't afford your generators to keep their houses going, businesses are going to suffer severely. I mean, like I said, just the few businesses we have here and the three block radius, it's going to kill people."
Gabriela Ornelas, a spokesperson for the utility, says they use the shut offs as a tool to limit the chance of wildfire danger.
“Our priority is keeping our customers safe, keeping our community safe, public safety. Power shutoffs are a tool that help us keep our community safe during dangerous fire weather conditions. So we may do public safety power shutoffs when we do see conditions that risk the safety of our communities.”
But residents like James Andie and Mark Gordon, who is the Chief Nursing Officer for the Kern Valley Hospital, this June doesn't feel any different weather wise than years past.
“We've seen winds like this for the last 50 years that I've lived in this community, and we just, we don't understand why, all of a sudden this year, those thresholds are different,” said Gordon.
“I can appreciate the protection. We've had some wildfires that have just reached from Lake Isabella all the way over here in an hour, one time, I mean, but the wind was blowing 80 miles an hour, and it just created havoc everywhere," said Andie. "Those things that they implement are good, but somewhere along the line, whatever they're using, or however that's been brought to their technology, something's amiss."
And while I was sitting down for lunch, a member of the community showed me a text notification from Southern California Edison notifying residents that their power could be shut off for safety reasons in the next four hours. However, according to Piazza, the power in Kernville went out, without notice.
"We did not get a notification that our power was going to go out. It went out as a surprise. And then, you know, maybe 15 minutes after the outage, there was an email saying that it was going to happen, but in this case there was literally no way to prepare and nothing that we could do it feels much more personal this time around, because there was no notice because there was no opportunity to prepare."
As for right now, the PSPS notice that was sent out to customers in the KRV says conditions are expected to remain this way until Saturday morning.
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